


Ahava

by pulpedeva



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: 1940s, Canon Related, Dreams, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Male Friendship, Mild Hurt/Comfort, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 06:07:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18911098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pulpedeva/pseuds/pulpedeva
Summary: Laurie's dream on the night before the wedding.





	Ahava

**Author's Note:**

  * For [waughisme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waughisme/gifts).



**“For the last hour he tried to think of nothing, and in the end almost succeeded...So at last he thought of what was next to nothing, the recollection of a dream, which tomorrow need not be remembered.”**

 

There was nothing to think about. Laurie shifted over and lay on his side, with his eyes still open. It was too dark to see his watch face, even if he had wanted to get up again and look for it. He lay uncomfortably and listened to the clock in the hall as it chimed the hour, two o’clock already.

The pain in his leg had started up again and he moved onto his stomach, face down, which usually helped. Time slipped away and resentment and loss lay over him like a shadow. Today had been dreadful, tomorrow would be more so. But there was little more to think on the subject. He kept his mind resolutely blank and listened instead to the sounds of the empty house, the creak of the old timbers and outside, the faint rustling of the cedar tree.

He was in the state of semi-wakefulness, where it was easy to slip into remembrance. Perhaps it was the surfacing of the old photos. It was rather embarrassing, when he thought of it, bringing him back again to his sixteen year old self and touching him with a sentimental longing. Of course, it was the photos he told himself, the hidden photograph still burning a hole in the breast pocket of his battle dress, mixing up past and present, bringing Ralph and Andrew together like unwilling partners. Their faces overlaid a little as he began to drift, but it was Ralph that came into clearer focus each time, until it was only his face he saw.

And Ralph’s voice he heard. He knew that he shouldn’t have called him, for again he was doing what he despised himself a little for, asking for his help and yet in the same beat rejecting it. And Ralph had cut him off mid-sentence and hung up. He wouldn’t allow his mind to wander further that way, like the resolutions held between the moment of sleep and wakefulness. But, unlike the renunciation of that next drag of tobacco or the slip of spirits down one’s throat, he couldn’t quite bring himself to renounce this. He was so tired after all. He let himself give in a little at the end, exhausted by the day and the constant dull ache in his knee.

For a while it was the same dream, which he had thought buried away. It was nothing like the confused imaginings which surfaced in the anaesthetic post-operative lull; dreams of Charles punting and the water in the Cherwell, were mild and not the stuff of particularly transporting dreams. It was just a memory of a dream, of which he had imagined telling Ralph the next day. _You wouldn’t believe what I dreamt of the other night, must be the APC playing me up again._ But the dream had been full of inexplicable yearning, which upon wakening had seemed rather over-blown and silly. At the time though, in the depth of the night, it had made perfect sense.

And then Ralph would have laughed and said something easy or offhand to diffuse the awkwardness and allow him what he clearly craved, to capitulate but reject blame.

But it wasn’t enough to leave it like that. He let himself wander to thoughts of Ralph at school, at nineteen and he a boy of sixteen, from some time far back when Ralph was less known to him. Old friendships allowed for the nostalgic element to the dream. Ralph appeared, as he often had, as Jack in The Coral Island, a wild and adventurous boy, a romantic figment with skin tanned to an even brown and hair bleached by the sun.

Laurie shifted around on the divan again so that he was on his side, his eyes closed, his breathing still unsettled and heavy. It was Ralph at nineteen but also Ralph now, real flesh and blood Ralph, that he held in his mind’s eye. The minutes passed and he moved again, his inability to sleep in a house which was now his and the emptiness of the divan seemed symbolic of his isolation, although empty beds were not unusual for Laurie. He had no siblings to have enjoyed or tolerated the intimacy of bed sharing. Of course, in the dorms at school and the army camp and lately the hospital ward, he was used to having his privacy invaded by the proximity of many others.

But this was different, for although he had always only known empty beds, now, he wanted something more. He began to picture Ralph by his side, not lying next to him in the cold, sad room, but somewhere in the far distance of his imagination. He and Ralph met every time in uniform, he had never seen him in anything less than his spotless naval blues, but now, he had a sudden yearning to see him dishevelled and less than perfect, or even simply relaxed, where the boundaries between them would dissolve a little. The two visions overlapped again, Ralph now and Ralph in his cricket whites playing for the First Eleven, Ralph in the school baths, Ralph having discarded his blazer and rolled up his sleeves to fence against him in the School Cert rehearsals.

The room was still unpleasantly cold, but he imagined himself far away from the bleak English winter. Not now, not during the war, it wouldn’t work to be too prosaic and real. He kept away from anything unpleasant, he’d seen enough of the reality of trauma and violent injury, but he pictured Ralph and himself together, united against some undefined foe. And Ralph, for once, needed some sort of help. It was probably an acknowledged craving, this desire to help Ralph, unlikely as it may seem. Ralph’s competence both stifled and relaxed him and he couldn’t always have it both ways.

The fantasy of helping Ralph, gave rein to Laurie’s more chivalrous impulses, where Ralph would be in a fix, in peril or uncertain, and Laurie would be the one to save him. He had no trouble going along with this. The feeling of potency and responsibility, which had worked for him with Nurse Adrian, to his surprise at the time, began to work now. Thoughts of Ralph incapacitated and weak aroused him in a predictable way.

The rise and fall of Laurie’s breathing settled into a more regular pattern and the landscape which materialised, as he drifted towards sleep, was distinctly Aegean. On the hills which rose from the shoreline, there were pine forests and plantations of fig and almond warmed by the sun. Olive groves surrounded them and as they moved through them, he saw that Ralph had been wounded and he could sense the draining away of some elemental energy within him.

Across Ralph’s brow and cheek was the mark of the wound, a thin line of red that didn’t smear or move but lay in a perfect curve that met his mouth. Laurie turned to support him, and manhandled him back towards the nearest tree, keeping him against it while he found the skin of water. He put it to his lips and watched the water slip out over Ralph’s mouth and chin, and Ralph, seemingly almost lost to him already, was passive and yielding.

Ralph’s eyes were closed. Laurie put one hand to his chest again, feeling its warmth under the heat of the sun, and the flesh was firm with the muscle beneath. He held him upright like this, pressed close, and could feel underneath his hand, and with each exhalation, the beat of Ralph’s heart.

The scent of the olive groves was around them, mixed with pine from the forests beyond the hills. And in the air too, was the metallic trace of blood. He touched Ralph’s face, feeling the arc of bone along his brow. He stroked it lightly, pouring a little water onto his fingertips and wiping away the gore until it ran along Ralph’s face in a watered, pale red.

Pushing his fingers into Ralph’s mouth, he poured the water again and it continued to run against Ralph’s lips. Holding Ralph gently and tipping his head back so that he could receive the water, he parted his lips, but Ralph remained lifeless and it was impossible to say where his mind wandered. The water spilled and Laurie stopped it with his mouth, holding Ralph’s hair back more firmly with his hands. His mouth moved against Ralph’s, and it was a strange sort of kiss, but Laurie knew, knowing him best, that Ralph was sinking close to the borders and mustn’t be allowed to cross.

There was little time left. He was pulling Ralph to him and feeling every part of his body where a pulse would beat, his wrists which he gripped hard, his neck where he pressed his fingers roughly into the hollow by his throat. Laurie could feel the rhythm faltering a little, and in the fear and panic, he moved restlessly on the divan.

But in the fluid and unexpected way of dreams, it was no longer Ralph who was submissive but himself. He gave into this as well. Ralph moved from his position against the tree and his eyes were wide open now, caught a bright blue by the sunlight.

His hands were on Laurie’s body, holding him and Laurie could move against him freely and he knew at that moment, that there was no pain. He was leaning into Laurie, “It’s alright,” Ralph was saying, “I know.” And when Ralph kissed him, a sudden, rough movement which caught him on the mouth, a deeply held recognition was in the touch of his lips against Ralph’s, and in the kiss, Laurie accepted a brief relinquishment of his own denial.

Although nearly asleep now, Laurie’s heart beat a little faster, and every part of contact with the divan was against Ralph. Even in the dream, it was not just the hectic release of desire that Laurie sought, but some sort of embrace to stave off the loneliness. Perhaps he was unaware of the empty space beside him, for in his mind it was filled by a more solid presence.

He held Ralph to him. “Don’t go,” he spoke into his mouth. And of course, Ralph said, “I won’t. I’m here.”

 

**“A cold pool of moonlight trickled over to where he lay, but by then he was out of reach, his eyes pressed down on the pillow, and one arm thrown over it in a gesture which, even in the relaxation of sleep, looked abrupt and possessive.”**

**Author's Note:**

> For Waughisme. From your prompt about Laurie's dream in Chapter 12. Using this little bit and filling in the massive gap left by 'the recollection of a dream'!
> 
> “For the last hour he tried to think of nothing, and in the end almost succeeded...So at last he thought of what was next to nothing, the recollection of a dream, which tomorrow need not be remembered.”
> 
> Hope you enjoy! ;)
> 
> Title taken from the biblical descriptions of the love between David and Jonathan, referenced variously by Laurie in relation to both Ralph and Andrew. 
> 
> 2 Samuel 1:26 of the “love” (Hebrew: “ahava”) between David and Jonathan that is greater than the “love of women” should be understood in light of the two earlier mentions of “love” (ahava) between David and Jonathan.


End file.
